Riding It Out

by Jennifer Foor

  “So the grounds keeper doesn’t exist?” I looked into his dark eyes, which I couldn’t tell if they were blue or brown, and prayed he wasn’t thinking of ways to harm me.

  “No. He doesn’t.” I said as I began looking through cabinets for matches or candles. When I came across some candlesticks he pulled out a lighter and waited for it to ignite before he pulled away. Our eyes met for the first real moment and I was taken aback by an overwhelming feeling that had come over me. “I’m not a criminal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It wasn’t,” I lied.

  “I’m a stranger, I get it, but I can assure you that I’m just as uncomfortable as you are. Now, we can stand here and get to know each other, or we can find some more resources before this candle burns out.”

  He had a point. There had to be more candles. “Follow me.”

  As soon as I started for the pantry, I heard the same sound as before. Not that I could be sure, but I was pretty positive that my nail job on the shutter hadn’t worked. Reluctantly I forged forward until we reached the old wooden door. The pantry smelled of the cedar that my aunt kept inside of it. Beneath the rug inside was a trap door that led to a dirt cellar. I hadn’t been down there but once in my life, because it was honestly the creepiest place on earth. I swore that dead bodies had to have been buried under there at some point.

  We scavenged through the shelves, both coming up short of candles. I was just about to give up when I heard the guy snicker. A bright light blinded me for a second as it passed in front of my eyes. I put my hands up and thankfully realized that he’d found a flashlight. “This will help.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Do you see anymore?”

  He shined the light all around, but we saw nothing we could use. “No. How about you show me to that room? If I agree to help you fix that shutter, will you let me put some dry clothes on?”

  I laughed, realizing that we were both sopping wet. “Sorry. Follow me.”

  We walked up the front steps of the house, me leading with the flashlight. Since he’d helped me out I was feeling a little more comfortable. Sure, I knew nothing about this guy, except that he drove a motorcycle, had a great body, and knew how to work a battery operated flashlight.

  Every room in the bed and breakfast was vacant. I picked the second one we came to and turned in. My aunt kept linens in airtight bags to keep in their freshness after she’d washed them. On top of the bed was the bag with the folded bed sheets. “Is this room okay?”

  He tossed his bag down on the bed and started pulling off his shirt, before I could turn around and walk away. “Yeah. It’s great. Just give me a minute and I’ll be out to help.”

  I walked out into the hallway and tried to not replay what I’d just witnessed in my head. His back was covered in a tattoo that appeared to be a giant skull. It was so fast that I couldn’t be certain, and I surely wasn’t going to ask for another peek. My mind started wandering again, imagining him being in some kind of dangerous motorcycle club, you know the ones like they show on television that sell guns and drugs, and sometimes even sex. It sure did put a damper on how I was beginning to feel comfortable.

  I’d left the room to give him privacy, but it gave me time to realize that I was also soaked from the rain. Him being around was so distracting that I’d forgotten all about it. I looked down and noticed that my shirt was stuck to my body, showing every curve that God had graced me with.

  He walked out of the room and I shined the flashlight in his direction. A crash of thunder shook the house, and I jumped out of fright. “Sorry. I don’t really like storms.”

  “Try walking a couple miles in one.”

  I shook my head and started moving toward the stairs. I needed to find this guy something to use as a light, so I could at least get to my aunt’s room, change my clothes, and figure out how I was going to get any sleep with a strange man in the same house as me.

  Once we reached the kitchen, I realized that we’d have to go outside to the utility shed to see if there was a generator. I leaned against the countertop contemplating how he’d just changed into his only other set of clothes, and how I was going to convince him to get all wet again. Suddenly I felt him coming toward me. To be honest I think I held my breath. The idea of him hurting me came to mind as his arm raised above my head. Before I could freak out he backed away holding up a large three wicked pillar candle. “Sorry for my reach. I spotted this when you flicked the flashlight around.”

  I snatched it out of his hand, accidentally grazing my fingers over his. “Good eye. Now we can have some sort of light. This candle should last us at least five hours, don’t you think?”

  He laughed. “I’m not really a candle burning kind of guy, but I’ll take your word for it.”

  It was good he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes, because I didn’t want him knowing that I found candles to be romantic. I lit the wicks and watched the room illuminate. “Now we can see each other.” His statement caused me to look up. Our eyes met and I smiled, probably displaying my discomfort clearly. He held out his hand. “My name is Reed. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

  “You can call me Erica, err, since it’s my name.” I was a blubbering mess as I shook his hand and tried to talk at the same time.

  He couldn’t understand that for the last three years I’d focused on my occupation, instead of my social life. Hanging out with friends consisted of a weekly staff meeting at the firm I worked for. By the time I left the office I usually crashed on the couch with some type of microwave dinner. Aside from going to the grocery store, I didn’t get out to socialize, on account of always trying to get extra work done at home. I was pretty sure I was the most boring woman on the planet.

  He began to laugh, bringing me back to my latest catastrophe. “Nice to meet you, Erica, since it’s your name.”

  I giggled and decided to move to the living room, where it was more comfortable. Once I sat down on the couch, and put the candle down on the coffee table, I watched him sit across from me. “So this sucks, huh?”

  The clanking started to get louder. “Where can I find a hammer?”

  “On the porch. Hang on, I’ll get you more nails.”

  I ran into the dark kitchen with the flashlight, grabbing a whole handful of nails. When I returned I saw Reed removing his shirt, tossing it on the couch. I approached him, catching the glimmer of something hanging from his neck.

  Dog tags.

  Shawn Reed.

  He went by his last name, like most soldiers did.

  Reed walked toward the front door, and I ran behind him with the nails and the light. Once he’d found the hammer, I handed him the first nail and watched as he worked to secure the loose object. In no time at all he had it repaired. We both looked at each other as a gust of wind whipped water that was leaking off of the overflowing gutters toward us. In an instant we were both drenched again. We made a run for it, back inside of the dry house. Then we stood there on the large area rug in the foyer dripping. “Well, so much for being dry.”

  “I can get us more towels. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  I ran toward the rear entrance and up the stairs. Once inside my room, I began ripping off my clothes. My teeth had begin to chatter, and I knew it wasn’t because of the temperature. In fact, the bedroom was so hot that I was sure I could almost bake a freaking cake. Once I had some dry clothes on, I hurried to gather more towels for Reed.

  I found him on the couch, and as I approached I realized that he was sitting in only a pair of boxer briefs. His shorts were hanging on the fireplace screen to dry. I made sure not to hold the flashlight on his handsome body while I handed him more towels. “Sorry about your shorts.”

  “Sorry I’m sitting here in my underwear. You can imagine that wet shorts aren’t very comfortable.”

  “I bet. It’s fine anyway. We’re both adults, right?”

  “The last time I checked,” he teased.

  A loud boom startled me again.
I jumped in my seat and put my hand to my heart.

  Reed laughed. “Well it’s not everyday that I get stuck inside of a dark house with a pretty lady.” My stomach flipped when I noticed that he’d called me pretty. Since I’d just gotten up from a nap, and then been outside in the rain and wind, I could only imagine what my hair looked like, not to mention my makeup.

  Usually I’d taken pride in my appearance. I never left the house without makeup, and styling my hair. Because it had gotten so long, I’d tossed it into a ponytail. After driving with the window down, I had to pick blonde strands off of my dark shirt before I went into the attorney’s office. I swore one day I’d be bald, but it was still as thick as it had ever been.

  I turned my attention back to the guy who’d just been nice to me. “Thanks for the compliment, but you might change your mind if you saw me in the daylight.”

  His laugh was deep this time, and I couldn’t help but notice that he found me amusing. “So, Erica, tell me, what do you do for a living?”

  “I have an office job in Baltimore. What about you?”

  “I was in the military until several months ago. Now I’m traveling around looking for new business opportunities. I spent my last tour doing recon in Afghanistan, so bright sandy beaches are where I’ve been hanging out since I got back.”

  “It sounds nice.”

  “It is now. I joined when I was eighteen. After fifteen years I was ready to give it up. There are things out there that once you’ve seen you can never un-see.”

  I crossed my legs and got more comfortable across from him. “So do you have family somewhere?”

  “I lost my mom when I was doing a tour in Iraq. Unfortunately I missed her funeral. My dad lost his shit, and he’s never really gotten over me not being there. I didn’t even hear about it until she’d been gone for three days. Even if I could have gotten home, it wouldn’t have been until after the service was over.”

  “Sorry to hear that. It’s got to be hard when you’re so far away.” In the back of my mind I was still doing the math about how old he was. If my calculations were right, he was thirty three, and boy did he look good for being that age.

  “It was ten years ago.”

  “So you don’t have siblings?”

  “I’ve got cousins. They all live in Florida, though. I spent some time there with them when I got back, but I’ve been away for so long that nothing seemed familiar to me. That’s when I decided to start traveling.”

  “The beaches here are nice. They are very family oriented.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. They see me on my Harley, and act like I’m an alien.”

  “Not necessarily. We have Bike Week. If you’re here when that happens then you’ll be giving the dirty looks. I’ve never seen so many motorcycles in my whole life.”

  “Have you ever attended?”

  Was he crazy? I was the most conservative prude to exist. Hanging out with a bunch of bikers would have put my own mother in an early grave. There was no way she would have approved. “It’s not really my cup of tea.”

  “You don’t look like a girl whose ever been on the back of the bike. How do you know you wouldn’t like it, if you’ve never tried it before?”

  I giggled. Just imagining putting on a helmet and clinging to the back of a guy made me uneasy. Motorcycles were dangerous, and I didn’t do dangerous. “No thank you. I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Even if you do it once in your life, I promise it will be a fulfilling experience. Nothing feels better than to feel the wind against your face while you’re cruising down a quiet country road. It’s invigorating.”

  “Until you get caught in a tropical storm,” I added.

  “Like I said before, I was trying to beat it. The satellite imagery showed it staying on coastal waters, so my plan was to get out of dodge before it got bad.”

  I snickered, “You probably should have left yesterday.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. My poor bike got doused. That hail did me in. Did you hear it?” He leaned forward and slapped his hands together, then started rubbing them.

  “I actually drove through the hail. It was huge. You’re lucky you weren’t harmed.”

  “Yeah, I heard it first. I knew better than to keep going. I parked my bike under a tree and let it pass.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to avoid trees in thunder storms?” Everyone knew that rule.

  “I’ve seen warzones and had fragments of metal tear into my skin. A little bit of hail isn’t going to hurt me. Besides, it only lasted for about a minute. As far as the trees go, when you see giant balls of ice falling from the sky, you take cover.”

  Hearing him talking about being a soldier was frightening for me. I knew that it happened, but I’d never talked to someone that experienced it. My phone beeped reminding me that it was sitting on a table by the front door. I stood up and headed toward it, recognizing the sound that meant the battery was about to die. As fast as my fingers could type, I pulled up the weather. It was way worse than I thought. “They say the temperature is supposed to drop twenty degrees tonight. How could I have not heard about this?”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it now. At least we have a roof over our heads. I tell ya, for a while I thought I’d never come to a house. That stretch of road out of town is deserted.”

  I smiled, having known since I was young how many miles the bed and breakfast was from town. “Four miles to be exact.”

  “Damn.”

  All of a sudden the room got quiet. I looked down at my hands realizing that I had nothing coming to my mind to talk about. Then something horrifying happened. A loud crash rumbled the house, and to be honest it sounded like it was collapsing with us inside of it. Reed jumped up quickly, shielding me with his own body, while searching around to see what was actually happening. When we could hear nothing but the storm outside again, we both stood and looked at each other. “What was that?”

  He turned to look back at me as he started walking toward the stairs. “I don’t know, but I’m going up to check things out.” I grabbed the flashlight and ran after him, just as curious as he was.

  We made it to the top of the steps and turned the corner. The sound of wood breaking caught Reed’s attention. He put his hand up so I wouldn’t walk past him. “Hold on. Something’s wrong.”

  I watched him head in the direction of the bedrooms. He peeked his head inside of the room that he’d changed in and immediately came back out. When he reached the next room I went after him, and was struck with a shocking revelation. A limb as thick as my body had come in through the roof. It was literally raining in the room from the extremely large hole. “Oh my God.” In the corner of the room, near the exterior wall, was the most damage. It had come all the way through the attic and busted into the drywall of the next level. Knowing that I’d just been given the deed meant that I’d be responsible for having the repairs done. The thought of the stress this was going to cause me made me feel nauseated.

  Reed stopped me from going any further. He grabbed my arm and led me back into the hallway. “The whole structure of the roof may have been damaged. I’m going to have to find some kind of tarps to prevent any more water damage.”

  “You’re not getting on that roof with this wind. You could die.”

  He walked past me and started heading down the stairs again. I followed, shining the light as I went. Reed headed to the kitchen and stood at the exit looking around in the back yard. “Is there supplies in that shed?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but please don’t worry about it. I’d rather have more damage then watch someone fall to their death. Don’t be crazy.”

  “I’ve been through much worse than a rain storm, lady. Trust me, you’re going to want to secure the roof to prevent any other damage that can be made.”

  Before I could stop him, Reed hauled ass into the back yard. He shielded his head with his arm as he ran. Once inside of the large utility shed, I felt a little relieved. I didn’t know this man, but I cer
tainly didn’t want him to die.

  A few moments later he came out carrying a bunch of items. I held open the door as he ran inside.

  With full hands he dropped everything on the countertop. I shined the light over all of it and saw that he’d found candles, a lantern, a tarp, bungee cords, and a large can of soup. “This was all I could grab at once. There’s more canned goods out there if we need to eat.”

  “Will that tarp work?”

  He sighed. “I’m going to have to climb out on the roof and check out the structure.”

  “Are you serious? You’ve seen what it’s like out there. I won’t let you climb out on the roof to inspect in these conditions.”

  “I’m not asking for your approval.” He headed for the stairs, leaving me in the kitchen while I tried to figure out a way to get him to stop. By the time I’d made it to the second floor he was out of the window. I rushed to it, looking outside to see if he’d already fallen to his death. I imagined him lying in a wet puddle, his sexy body a tangled disarray. Then I saw him, clinging to the dormer while using one hand to stretch out the tarp. I don’t know what got into me, but I hustled to get out the window to offer him assistance. While the night sky lit up with bolts of electricity, we were hanging out on a dilapidated roof.

  It was for sure the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

  Reed saw me and pointed to the window. “Get back inside, Erica. I’ve got this under control.”

  “You can’t do it alone. I’m here to help you.”

  “Get inside,” he yelled.

  Feeling defeated, I turned around to head for the window, but lost my grip and began to slide down the shingles. That puddle I’d seen earlier wasn’t waiting for Reed. It was going to be my death instead.

  Just as my feet cleared the gutter, I felt a hand grabbing my arm. My body twisted to see Reed holding on to me for dear life. “I’ve got you.”